Suspects in Changhua County were released on bail on Thursday amid an investigation into an unregistered banking operation that allegedly provided high-interest loans to migrant workers.
Criminal Investigation Bureau officials said that evidence showed that the operation was headed by a man surnamed Huang (黃) and since 2014 had approved NT$780 million (US$27.47 million at the current exchange rate) in loans, generating an estimated NT$70 million in illegal profit.
Bureau officials said they seized NT$22.65 million in cash, details of 40 bank accounts, a set of ledgers, a money counting device, 13 computers and 12 smartphones during searches last month.
Huang, 56, was released on NT$3 million bail, while two staff, a female accountant surnamed Liao (廖) and a male executive surnamed Yang (楊), were released on NT$50,000 and NT$30,000 bail respectively.
Fourteen suspects face charges under Article 344 of the Criminal Code, officials said.
Bureau official Hsueh Sheng-hsu (薛昇旭) said that Huang registered five companies in Changhua as placement agencies serving people from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, supplying caregivers, and construction and manufacturing workers in central Taiwan.
“We received complaints last year that Huang’s companies were allegedly lending money to migrant workers, but charging high interest,” Hsueh said. “Surveillance showed that Huang was apparently running a large-scale unregistered banking operation with thousands of victims.”
“Taiwan has a substantial number of migrant workers and their wages are fixed, so when they have urgent financial needs, many turn to illegal banking operations for loans,” he said, adding that Huang and his staff allegedly took advantage of their lack of Chinese reading ability to get them to sign agreements with exorbitant interest rates and fees, while waiving the lender’s legal responsibility.
Documents showed that a migrant worker who borrowed NT$40,000 was charged interest of NT$7,000 per month, which accumulated to more than NT$80,000 over a year, Hsueh said.
“The loans we found documentation for showed that interest rates topped 100 percent,” he said. “It was illegal profiteering to an excess.”
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